01:14
by teampraetor
Summary: "I'm Jason Grace. Thanks for not letting me get trampled on by stripper heels and flailing limbs." Oneshot UniversityAU, Jeyna. Cover image by Minuiko.


Reyna doesn't think twice when she clasps hands with Jason Grace, pulling him up off the floor of the nightclub Gwen dragged her to with a jerk of her arm; she expects him to act like any other guy that graces (no, that is not a pun) the dirty floors of run-down, slightly shady Californian nightclubs; experience tells her he'll either let her be on her way, offering no more than a curt nod, or he'll try his luck with an entirely unappreciated, not-so-subtle comment on seeing her figure sparse of any clothing.

She's met instead with blue eyes clear of any drunken glaze, an appreciative, if slightly sheepish grin and an expression far too open. However, in true Avila-Ramirez fashion, she refuses to be perturbed, instead mentally labelling him a designated driver and offering a curt nod as she tries to pull her clammy hand away from his. She finds, though, that he doesn't really give her the chance to leave before he can kindly shake her hand and introduce himself.

"Jason Grace. Thanks for not letting me get trampled on by stripper heels and flailing limbs."

"No problem," she mutters, glancing away from his face to a certain red-head behind him, whom she whole-heartedly blames for this encounter.

Her eyes flicker back towards him, watching shadows dance across his face as the flickering strobe lights illuminate sharp lines and a strong jaw. Provoked by eyes searching her face curiously, she acknowledges that she hasn't provided her name yet.

Reyna pointedly looks at her hands, and then stares at him expectantly. Jason releases his hold, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, and she brushes past him.

Or she would have done, had he not gently grabbed her upper arm. _What was with him and the touching?!_ She glares at him, brushing his hold off, and he looks at her like he's trying to tame a wolf. "Sorry to pull you back here again, but I never caught your name."

"I never offered it."

The corners of his lips pull upward slightly. "I'm implying that you should."

"And I'm bluntly stating that I won't."

She expects him to look lost for words, to finally leave her alone, yet for the second time that night he exceeds her expectations. "I can't offer a lady a ride home without first knowing her name."

Her eyes narrow into slits.

She should walk away. God dammit she should pull her hand back, turn the fuck around and go and sit on a stool at the bar. It's what she'd usually do; she isn't used to surprises, like unexpected conversations with blue eyed boys in plaid shirts.

Yet...

"My name's Reyna," she finally offers.

Clearly that extra shot she downed was a bad idea and now she's just not thinking straight. Clearly she's so drunk she won't remember a thing in the morning.

(That one shot is the single quantity of alcohol she's consumed all night, but she pushes that fact to the back of her mind.)

Despite the entirely unrealistic conclusion she draws for herself that she's intoxicated, Reyna still entertains the idea that maybe it's because he didn't say 'lady' like he was mocking or degrading her, he stated it like a fact. Maybe it's because he hasn't stared once at her like she's a piece of meat, or maybe it's because he hasn't even offered her a drink as if he's trying to get with her.

In all honesty, she's somewhat sick of always knowing what will happen next. After over twenty years of schedules and military-like structure, she craves a bit more spontaneity, and perhaps this is her chance. She knows that if she walks away now, she'll just go sit at the bar, idly tapping her fingers on the counter and fighting off any flirting attempts cocky jack-asses with sleazy grins fling her way. She knows that Gwen's going to spend the night with Dakota and then come back home the following afternoon with a hazy memory of the club, pretending that she didn't wake up next to a guy she's supposedly just friends with. She knows she's going to stay up all night finishing an assignment due in tomorrow (or today - what is the time anyway?), and nurse a mug off coffee and a pounding headache in the morning.

Reyna focuses back on Jason's face, and allows her lips to lift in the ghost of a smile for the first time that night as she finalises her decision. "And if the offer still stands, I'd like that ride home."

Now Reyna's not stupid. As he hooks his arm snugly into the crook of her own elbow, asking for her home address, she provides one a couple of blocks away from the university, despite the fact that his intentions can be read like an open book and she is 99.99% positive he isn't going to harm her (and she mentally calculates that that percentage can be mathematically rounded to 100%).

She's appreciative of the fact that he seems to understand that she isn't the type to offer information first, and opens the conversation by telling her irrelevant details about himself, like his favourite colour (purple) and Avenger (Captain America - despite trying not to, she openly laughs, and slots in her own two cents about the Winter Soldier; his beaming grin is admittedly not one she'll forget quickly).

Too soon however he changes topics, "Are you at the university, Rey?" and she frowns, both at the nickname and the sudden intrusion of privacy. To be fair though, the question itself really isn't that personal, considering the amount of students who move across the country to attend the institution of higher education (like herself, she thinks somewhat bitterly).

"Yeah," she says shortly, previous amusement forgotten. She doesn't intend to be rude, but she would rather better know his personality and characteristics before offering specifics, like her course. Sure, she got into his car, but she trusts her training enough to know she'll easily knock him out if he tries anything. Information, however, potentially leads to vulnerability. Although that being said, often making friends is a two way journey; to receive information you have to offer it too, and Reyna's often found that until she's a little more comfortable around the other person, she isn't very good at the second part of the whole social ordeal.

"You?" she asks.

"Yeah, Classical major," he replies, and Reyna relaxes into the leather seat a little bit more, the knowledge that they attend the same university somewhat reassuring her. "You aren't by any chance the president, are you?" He looks at her momentarily, and she doesn't miss the knowing twinkle in his eyes.

She really should have told spontaneity to screw itself and she should have lied about her name. Or her goddamn student occupation.

"Co-president," she admits reluctantly, because her face has been plastered across too many bulletins for her to successfully lie now. She straightens her back slightly, determined to pull their conversation back to a professional level. It's obvious, however, that it's far too late the following moment when Jason smiles awkwardly and stutters midway through inviting her for a late night hot chocolate. Because honestly?

Yes she really would like that before she tackles that stupid, incomplete essay.

"You know a café open at," she pauses to look at the time, "1:14 in the morning?"

"I do when I'm in possession of the keys." She can clearly hear the grin and intonation of betcha-didn't-see-that-coming, but his tone is void of any arrogance, which makes her smile.

"Do you bring every girl you pick up to this café in the middle of the night?"

He turns to her, smiling cheekily. "So I picked you up in that nightclub then?"

She scoffs at him, an open sound that makes Jason chuckle. "More like I picked - no, in fact I _hauled_ - your ass off the floor."

The engine stops rumbling beneath them, and Reyna looks up to see a café well-known around the campus (and even more so around the university council, 90% of whom often look like they need the extra caffeine) for having good coffee and small alcoves perfect for quiet studying.

"The Classics major who works at Café Laurus - I'm genuinely going to be disappointed if you tell me they don't give you a laurel to wear during shifts."

"Would you look at that, the rumours are false; you aren't an ice queen, but a Latin speaking, somewhat nocturnal, sarcastic ray of sunshine, with a tag along job as the university's co-president."

She shoves him lightly whilst rolling her eyes. "I prefer Ice Queen to being compared to a hot ball of gas."

He cocks his head to the side, momentarily in thought. "I suppose you lack the happy-go-lucky connotations linked to the sun, but you _do _provide for the university like the sun provides for the Earth."

Genuinely speechless, she struggles to snark something witty in his direction; after pulling up blank, she simply murmurs a quiet thank you (though she isn't sure if it's for the ride, the easy going conversation, or his kind comment), and let's herself out of the car.

The keys jingle in the lock as Jason fumbles to open the door, and soon enough they're bustling through the doorway and into the warm room. The lingering smell of coffee invades Reyna's senses, a very pleasant change from the scent of stale tobacco and spilt booze lurking on many street corners outside.

"Hey, Reyna?" His voice sings a melody of uncertainty. "Why did you accept my offer in the first place? The drive home, I mean."

Onyx eyes soften as they meet with a pair of eyes bluer than the Augustan Californian sky, and she momentarily busies herself with the (not so) scientific task of dragging a chair across the tiled floor as she carefully thinks through her response. She stops before the counter Jason's standing behind and opens her mouth to speak, plopping herself down tiredly. "I guess I wanted my night to be a little more special than the same old visiting a club I have no interest in, and then spending the remainder of the early hours of the morning finishing an assignment I didn't have time for earlier on in the week." Her answer's scarily honest, she muses, but figures that Jason deserves as much.

He smiles at her softly in lieu of answering, and turns on a machine before gesturing to the menu behind him. "What would you like?"

A few minutes later the scent of hot chocolate envelopes her like a hug as she lifts the mug Jason set before her to her lips. Below she notices a scrawl dotting the napkin on the plate.

'You're making my night pretty special too.'

On the way home conversation flows smoothly between them, and Reyna realises a moment too late that the blond is pulling into the university parking lot. She whirls around to face him, eyeing him somewhat irritably. "This isn't where I asked you to drop me off."

"Well observed." Onyx eyes narrow calculatingly, because while Reyna notes that he hasn't revealed anything ludicrously personal – and she doesn't expect nor wish for him to either – he's thrown many of his character traits her way; she thinks that she summarises her initial impression of him nicely when she dubs him a '_sarcastic, hot-chocolate-making, far-too-open-to-be-considered-healthy, observant and ridiculously kind_ _git_'.

He continues speaking, "I figured you either live here or not too far away; I assume you're needed on call as co-president of the council," and she decides that, yeah.

She would kind of like him and all of his thoughtfulness in her life.

After he pulls the key out of ignition, Reyna lets herself of out of the car and quickly directs herself to the dormitory, trying to fight the heartfelt curve of her lips. Behind her, she can hear the beeping of his car and his increased breathing as he jogs slightly to catch up with her.

She sighs almost sadly as the individual bumps of the wall plaster of her dorm building become visible, realising she really has got to tackle that assignment. As she reaches the door, she turns around and diplomatically offers her hand to the befuddled boy behind her, thankful for his presence in the past couple of hours. "It was nice meeting you, Grace."

He finally realises what she's trying to do and rolls his eyes, wrapping her in a loose hug, and his quiet laughter is suddenly very close to her ear. "Nice meeting you too, Reyna, but I promised at the café that I'd help you with that assignment, so you're stuck with me for a couple more hours."

She should have known he was being serious.

Jason's expression tells her that he already knows what her decision will be, and soon enough they're walking up the stairs shoulder to shoulder, the backs of their hands brushing against one another _just_ enough to make a difference.

It hasn't been long since they've walked through the doorway of her shared dorm room, ("Wait a second; _you're _Gwen's never-there-when-I-visit-roommate?"), and despite this he's already happily making himself at home, searching the cupboards for a couple of mugs and a bag of microwave popcorn. He's already comfortable, and for that Reyna's grateful; it saves them awkward conversations of, "May I please," or, "Can I just," (and it also shows that he may just find her companionable enough to see her again, and she isn't in the business of kidding herself and saying that she wouldn't like that).

She makes her way to her laptop, finding that she isn't as reluctant to start as before, and knows that it probably has something to do with the blond in the kitchenette still quietly opening and closing cabinets.

...

An alarm rings somewhere to her left, and Reyna blearily lifts her head off of the uncomfortably hard surface she fell asleep on, squinting at the harsh morning light that invades the room. She pushes herself off of the kitchenette counter and makes her way to her bedside table, stretching out the kinks in her back.

Turning around, she notices multiple things at once: her essay sits complete on the printer, her sink is littered with multiple spoons and dirty mugs, and Jason is _still here. _

She doesn't bother to stop the warm smile spreading on her lips.

Recalling him mention sometime last night that his first class of the day is in the afternoon, Reyna resets her alarm and places it next to his head. She then unpeels a sticky note from a pile on the counter and scrawls on top of the scratchy surface, before gently placing it on his forehead, careful not to disturb him.

'Thanks for the hot chocolate and your opinions on world politics.'

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><p><em>an; If you have any feedback, criticism or things you need cleared up, please drop off a review c:_


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